What About Now
by TheMortician'sDaughter
Summary: They'd had everything he'd ever wanted, and he'd never imagined it could end so abruptly. Hodgins/Angela. Canon.


**Heyyyy so I finally wrote another **_**Bones **_**fic, finally. Unfortunately, it's pretty damn sad, but Hodgins after the big break up of season four. And Hodgela is my favourite pairing, so writing something so torturous to poor Hodgins is pretty mean, but hey. Why not. XD**

**Anyway. I don't own the show or its characters or anything, you know, normal disclaimer stuff. I hope you all enjoy it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. :3**

"_But… you're the one who's leaving." As much as he tried to keep his voice low and steady, hoping to show that he wasn't completely broken, it cracked anyway. He could feel the warmth of tears boiling behind his blue eyes as he kept them fixed on hers, but somehow maintained the strength to not let them spill over._

_ "And you're the one who's not running after me."_

She was right. In all the pain of the moment, that was the bottom line. She was right. Of course, Angela was always right, wasn't she? Well, no – not always. But in instances such as this, there was nobody who was ever more right than Angela.

How could he have been so stupid? Just because she was the one who chose to leave was no reason to put her as the one at fault. It wasn't always the plight of the one who chose to leave. Sometimes, unfortunately, it was the other, the one who had never seen it coming. The one who had thought that everything would be perfect, or at least something close to it – the one who envisioned their future as something beautiful.

And that was why. Hodgins had failed to see the hole in their relationship ever before. He'd had his eye and his heart set on Angela from the moment they met – that first forensics case the both of them had been on. She was an artist whose dream was to be in Paris, and unlike any other who would have questioned her presence in a forensic crime lab, he found that fascinating. He felt that pull, and cowered from it for years after he first felt its tug.

They'd had it all, they really did. They'd had the love, the perfect date, the support. Everything. They'd had everything, and it had ended like the quickest snap of a magician's fingers.

With a blink of his trembling eyelids, Hodgins reached towards the ball of rubber bands he kept on his desk. It was something he hadn't done in years – he hadn't needed to. He remembered the sharp snap of the rubber against his skin and the red marks it left, but it wasn't something that wouldn't fade away eventually. They always did, leaving no vestige of their existence. However, the mental scars he bore were something that he hoped would fade, and maybe they would. But they would never disappear. They'd always be there lurking in the back of his brain, waiting for some sort of stimulus to jump right back into action.

He pulled one of the bands from the outer layer of the ball and slipped it over his wrist. Leaning back in his chair, he took the edge of the band between his forefinger and thumb, pulled it back and let go a moment later, anticipating the stinging second of pain that snapped over the skin of his wrist. He pulled it back a second time and let it snap, then a third. The impact of the rubber band didn't hurt much when it first made its contact, but afterwards he would feel the dull sting of pain on his skin.

Hodgins looked down at his wrist after a few more snaps of the rubber band to find that half a dozen or so red bands were beginning to appear on the sensitive skin. He shook his head and moved his elbow to the tabletop, resting his face in his palm. Unwillingly, he let a tear slip from his eye, the warmth sliding down his cheek and rolling off his chin, landing somewhere on his arm. After everything he'd been through, he'd always been convinced that he wouldn't let himself shed a tear over something like this, over a _girl._ But he'd never actually realized how much it truly did hurt. Having the one person you thought was the one end everything and then accuse you of being the one who wasn't following her was something he'd never imagined could be this horrible.

Even before they'd even been in anything close to a relationship. When he was buried underground in that car with Dr. Brennan, he loathed the thought of never seeing Angela again, knowing that he was probably going to die locked in the darkness of some vehicle because a serial killer wanted a ransom. He was ashamed that even though they weren't anything close to lovers at that point, she wouldn't be able to say that someone she may have loved died heroically.

And now she'd never have that chance. Not that it mattered to her, of course. She was the one who left him and his heart in pieces. She'd left him to pick up the pieces as she moved on to someone else, someone better. Someone who could give her what she wanted, because apparently he just wasn't good enough.

"Dr. Hodgins?" Startled, Hodgins' head flew up from his palm, using the other to wipe the trail of tears from his cheek. He shook his head and stood up, smoothing out his lab coat and flannel shirt beneath it. He turned around to see Brennan approaching his work area, a silver bin in hand with some sort of specimen placed in the middle. "I need you to examine this and then send me the results."

Running a hand over his face again, Hodgins stepped forward and took the specimen from his colleague's hands. "Sure thing." Brennan nodded and turned on her heel, fortunately not bothering to question his obviously disheveled and upset appearance.

Yes, work. Work was what he needed. Somehow he'd forgotten about the case in the midst of everything that'd just happened. Hopefully staring into a microscope at the cells of whatever evidence laid in front of him would help get his mind away from the steady agony pulling at his heart.

However, as he was aware but loathed to believe, the work he adored so dearly did next to nothing. It kept his mind at work for some amount of time, but failed to keep his attention.

Because each time he heard the click of her heels pass his work area, a new wound opened on his insides, joining the others and carving a pathway for the future ones to be inflicted.


End file.
